Reception Class 2017 - 2018

Mrs Rowson

Ms Ranson

Year 1 Teacher

Mrs Hughes

Foundation Stage Teacher

Mrs Wilde

HLTA

Welcome to Foundation Stage

On this page you will find out about what we have been learning, finding out and doing.

Reception is a very important year at school and within the year we aim to provide the children with the tools that they need to ensure they have a successful learning journey at Marlborough. The children learn the values that are important to us at both Marlborough and in the wider community, to take responsiblity for their actions, to be tolerant and understanding as well as how to enjoy their learning and work in harmony with others.

We hope you enjoy discovering what life is like at Marlborough. As ever if you have any question please feel free to come in and chat to us after school.

Staff

The teachers in Foundation Stage are Mrs Rowson, Miss Ranson, Mrs Hughes and Mrs Meredith. Mrs Hughes teaches on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Miss Ranson teaches on a Monday and a Tuesday, Mrs Rowson teaches on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and Mrs Meredith teaches on a Thursday and Friday. Miss Tune and Mrs Warburton are the teaching assistants and Mrs Wilde works as a HLTA within the class on alternate Wednesday mornings and alternate Friday afternoons when the teachers have PPA. Mrs Pollard also teaches within the class on alternate Wednesdays.

Summer Term 2018

Wow ! We are amazed at how well our Foundation Stage children have come back into school. They all seem to have grown, are more independant and eager to learn and apply all of their rapidly developing skills. We can't wait to see what adventures unfold in Summer Term.

Spring and Life Cycles!

Our theme for this half term will be Spring and Life Cycles.

We are kick starting the new term looking at changes that are happening in the Spring time, with a focus on life cycles. We are all very excited and looking forward to the arrival of the hen eggs on Monday! This will give us a good opportunity to explore changes to the natural world first hand. It is hoped that the eggs will hatch in the first week that they are here. Please feel free to come in, see the eggs and meet our chicks when they have hatched! We are also excited to be able to watch frog spawn change into frogs over the coming weeks!

As always, many more ideas and activities evolve from the childrens excitement, interests and ideas that they discover through the topic and also events that happen in the world around them.

Rehearsals for Festival on the Field are in full swing! We are busy learning words and actions to our holiday themed songs! We are looking forward to performing for you.

In Reading, we are focussing on non-fiction texts in connection with our Spring theme and we will be learning to label illustrations and write facts about animal life cycles. Another big focus is tricky words. Please check your child's reading diary for words to learn. This term we have introduced Guided Reading. Children read a copy of the same text in a group. Individual reading is also continuing. Keep reading at home, it really does make a difference to your child's progress.

In Phonics we are recapping our knowledge of our phase 3 phonemes and moving into phase 4. We are working really hard to blend our phonemes to read longer words. We can now recognise most of our phase 3 tricky words and are beginning to learn our phase 4 tricky words.

We continue to have a high focus on forming these letters correctly, please practise these whenever you can.

In Maths we are continuing to focus on touch counting acurately and rote counting forwards and backwards with confidence. We are looking closely at numbers to twenty and how they can be represented in a variety of ways. Reasoning and problem solving has been introduced and we are incredibly proud of the children's ability to expain why something could represent a certain amount or what we might need to do it to make it represent that amount. We are estimating different amounts and are consolidating simple addition and subtraction problems . We will also be looking at finding out the names of 3d shapes and their properties. Our role play area will be made into a shop, so we can use the vocabulary of money as we play.

Please continue to encourage your child to dress and undress independently at home, including socks, tights, shoes and coats. Encourage little fingers to fasten up their coats, this is fantastic devlopment for the strength needed for writing.

Homework

A key focus throughout the year is reading. The children will usually read in school once a week and we would ideally like them to read to an adult at home every day whenever possible.

In addition to reading, the children have been given a list of high frequency words to learn at home. Please help your child to read these by encouraging them to blend by sounding out the words that are decodable, for example "ch i ck" and "sh e ll" and "c oa t" and "r ai n." There are also "tricky" words, on the list, such as "they" and "here" and the children should be encouraged to learn to read these by heart, through little games and tasks, as this will really help to speed up the reading process.

Home News Books

A huge focus in Reception is becoming a confident speaker and an attentive listener. This half term children will continue to bring home a home news book on a Friday. This is their book that they can share what they have been doing at home. They can draw pictures, label them, write sentences stick in tickets, maps or photographs. When supporting your child to write please help them to stretch out and hear the sounds they need to write rather than write the words for them to copy. Please continue to help your child form each letter correctly. Please send in your books each week as at different points in the day we will choose a book and your child will share their work with the rest of their registration group.

Useful Websites /Apps to access with your child

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ This has some lovely games to help support our work on phonics. No need to subscribe click on free phonics play on the far right on the webpage.

www.ictgames.com There are some lovely games on here to support both Literacy Development and Mathematics.

The Cbeebies website

Apps

twinkl 123 count to 20

Forest phonics

Tricky words

Phonics play

You can read

Useful activities to do with your child at home

Share books and read to your child. Talk about the pictures, characters, events and how they feel about them.

Make the time to intoduce new vocabulary when reading stories, visiting new places or experiencing new things.

Make up stories about toys, objects and journeys.

Encourage your child to spot letters, numbers and shapes in the environment.

Encourage your child to apply their blending skills to read words around them.

Count objects and talk about their size

Play dice games.

I spy

Fruit

During the afternoon each day we have a fruit or vegetable snack, this is a government initiative where children in the infants have a piece of fruit. We call this session "snack and chat" This time provides a lovely opportunity for the children to sit with their peers and reflect upon the day and enjoy a healthy snack.

Each day children require:

A small healthy snack for morning break only.

Reading books and diaries.

A coat (even when its not raining as we often go to the woods where it is colder)

A pair of wellies (to be left in school)

P.E. Kit (to be left in school) these will be sent home for washing at the end of each half term. Please also put a pair of socks and spare underwear in the bag in case of your child having an accident or getting wet playing in the playground.

If your child borrows any spare clothing from us then please return it ASAP because we have a limited supply.

A water bottle with a sports style top to reduce spills (containing water only please)

Now the weather is getting warmer, please consider applying suncream before your child comes to school (The once a day suncream is very effective!) A sun hat would also be useful.

Useful information

Below are two videos that cover all the phonemes we are learning in class. The first covers the initial sounds that your child will be starting to become familiar with during the Autumn term. The second is the Phase 3 sounds which are made up of two letters (we call these diagraphs).

Your child may enjoy teaching you the actions for each letter. The actions and songs really help the children to remember the letters and sounds so please practice these with your child.